It's two weeks before Christmas (TR PANIC). You still don't have anything for your mother. (TR PANIC, HIGHER PITCH) You go to a china shop and find a beautiful crystal dish (PING) and you try to squeeze one more purchase out of your credit card and the clerk swipes the card through the reader and you wait for the credit check (TR UNDER BREATH: Oh please please please please please) and red lights flash (KLAXON) and horns go off - you try another card and the same thing happens (TK ELECTRONIC VOICE: Do not sell to this man.) - all six of your credit cards are maxed out from buying stuff (TR GROAN OF REGRET) and nothing for Mom. (TR: Mom!) You forgot your own little mom. (SS MOM REVERB: Oh that's all right. I don't need any gifts. It's enough just to know that you'll be here for Christmas. TR GUILT SEIZURE) But you're not going to be there. (TR: Oh mom.) You're taking your family to Orlando for Christmas. (TR: I already bought the tickets.) Why didn't you think about inviting Mom? (TR: Why???) It's too late now. (TR: Too late?) Yes. But you've got to scrape up some dough to buy Mom something. (TR: I could pawn my watch.) That's the watch that Mom gave you. (TR GUILT TAKE) You're getting ugly phone calls every day from bill collectors. (SS ON PHONE: Mister Ulfert, this is Master Card. May we expect a payment from you this week?) You ask your boss for an advance on your salary. (TK: An advance on what salary, Ulfert? I don't think you're going to be around here that much longer. TR PANIC) So you look through the want ads (TR: "Wanted - elves" - hmmmm.) So you get a job at a department store as one of Santa's elves. (SS TRAINER: Okay, listen up. No drinking. No smoking. And try to look elfin, okay? I want to see twinkly eyes and winsome facial expressions. Otherwise you're fired. You get that?) And out you go in your red tights and your elf hat with the bells (JINGLING) and there is a line about ten miles long (CROWD AMBIENCE, SS CRYING CHILD, TR SNARLY FATHER) of miserable children who've been waiting for hours to see Santa (TR: Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas. JINGLES.), little children who look like they'll grow up to be vicious psychopaths (TR CHILD: I want a gun, Santa. A real gun.) and you're trying to smile at the horrible children and be winsome and twinkly (TR LAUGHTER) and who should come by but your sister-in-law (SS COOL: Hi.), the one who never liked you (TR NERVOUS: Hi. Just - trying to do my part for the kids. SS: Your tights are too tight. TR: Oh?? SS: They're in your crack. TR: Oh oh.) And you sneak away (TR: Excuse me, boys and girls.) and you tiptoe backwards to the dressing room (TR: Be right back, kids!) and you look at your rear end in the mirror (TR EMBARRASSMENT) and she's right, it's not a pretty sight, it's crack city back there, and you try to loosen up the tights (RIP, TR ANXIETY) and now there's a hole in your tights the size of Connecticut. (TR ANXIETY) You need a pair of pants. (TR PANIC) Your pants are in this locker. But you've forgotten the combination. (TR PANIC. SHAKING LOCKER DOOR) Here's a locker that's open, though. (DOOR EASING OPEN) And there's a pair of pants. (TR: Looks like they'll fit me.) And you pull them on. And they do fit you. (TR: Perfect.) Too bad they're yellow plaid, but - (TR: Now what do I do?) (FOOTSTEPS) You go in search of your supervisor. (TR: I saw her a minute ago.) She'll get you a new pair of tights, you'll be back in business. (CROWD AMBIENCE) You walk back through Santa's workshop, and people turn to stare (TK TEEN: Hey, an elf in yellow plaid pants!) and children point at you (SS GIRL: That man is weird.) and in your terrible self-consciousness (TR: Just looking for my pants, folks!) you go through the exit, through the magnetic detector (KLAXON. TR PANIC. TK ELECTRONIC VOICE: Stop that man. RUNNING FOOTSTEPS) and it goes off, something in the pants set it off (RUNNING, SHOUTS), and you race down a long hallway toward an Exit sign, through throngs of people and you're just about to the door when - (TK: Gotcha! (FOOTSTEPS STOP) (TR: These are not my pants!) (TK: Yer right. Look. They still got the price tag on em.) (TR: I had no idea!) And he snaps on the handcuffs (SNAP SNAP) and just then you hear a familiar voice. (SS MOM: Danny? Is something wrong, honey?) And you look up and it's Mom. (TR: Oh mom.) She smiles down at you where you lie handcuffed on the floor. (SS MOM: Aren't you feeling well, Danny?) (RHUBARB THEME)

Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie? Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).